J70 Worlds - Black Flags hit hard on Day 4 - Payl Cayard reports

by Paul Cayard on 1 Oct 2016 Three races were held today on Berkeley Circle for the J70 fleet. The wind for the first two races was 10-12 knots and it was osculating giving plenty of opportunities to all the competitors.

On Calvi Network we had a solid first race, finishing third right behind Claudia Rossi, the leader at that point. The Mexican’s on Flojito were right behind us in fourth. Joel Ronning was 10th and Judd Smith in his Africa was 28th. At this point 23 year old Claudia Rossi with her Petit Terrible was winning the Championship, Ronning second, Calvi Network third.

In the second race, we had to work our way through the fleet to finish eighth. Again is was sub planing conditions which is not our forte so we were happy with the eighth. Running sailed a great race to finish second, while Flojito finished sixth. Again Africa had a tough race in 34th and Rossi gathered her first bad race with a 52nd.

For the third race the wind came up to 16 knots. I got us a horrible start. It turned out to be a really horrible start as we found out after the finish that we were Black Flagged. In a bitter sweet way, it was our worst race, so losing it was not the worst outcome. For Rossi, it was disaster as she won the race and held a commanding lead on the World Championship until she found out she also was Black Flagged. Judd Smith came back to win the final race of the day while Ronning had a solid eighth.

At this point, with two races to go, Joel Ronning, in his Catapult, has a commanding 20 point lead on Julien Fernandez Flojito with us in Calvi Network in third two points a drift of Flojito.

The forecast for tomorrow is for lighter winds, similar to this morning’s races.